Unreal Engine 5 Outperforms UE4 in VALORANT Performance

VALORANT’s Transition to Unreal Engine 5.3: Performance Upgrade and Insights

Riot Games has recently upgraded its competitive first-person shooter, VALORANT, to Unreal Engine 5.3. This transition promises improved performance over the previous engine version, generating significant interest within the gaming community.

Performance Comparisons: Unreal Engine 4 vs. Unreal Engine 5.3

A newly released comparison video by MxBenchmarkPC reveals the differences in performance between VALORANT running on Unreal Engine 4 and the latest 5.3 version. The tests were conducted on a system equipped with an RTX 4070 GPU, showcasing a notable increase in framerates in the Unreal Engine 5.3 iteration. Despite the performance enhancements, the visual quality remains largely the same, with only minor improvements—an expected outcome given the competitive focus of VALORANT and prior statements from the developers.

CPU and RAM Usage Insights

The upgrade has also led to a rise in CPU load, RAM, and VRAM utilization. While this increase could pose challenges for players using lower-end hardware, reports of significant performance concerns on these systems have yet to emerge. This cautious optimism underscores the game’s stability post-update.

VALORANT Unreal Engine 5 Update vs UE4 – Graphics/Performance Comparison | RTX 4070 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyP5yWxgnjw)

Addressing Unreal Engine 5 Stuttering Issues

It is noteworthy to mention the remarkable smoothness with which VALORANT operates on Unreal Engine 5, especially considering the engine’s historically known stuttering issues. Epic Games is aware of these challenges; recently, Software Engineer Ari Arnbjörnsson addressed the topic in a presentation titled The Great Hitch Hunt at Unreal Fest 2025. During this discussion, he highlighted the technical causes behind stuttering and offered solutions for developers to mitigate these problems.

Other Unreal Engine 5 Developments: A Case Study

Another recent title utilizing Unreal Engine 5 is the soulslike game WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers. Though not the worst performer among UE5 games, it still leaves room for performance improvements. Even players with high-end GPUs, like the RTX 4080, reported needing Frame Generation to achieve 60 frames per second at 4K resolution, indicating that technical optimizations are still necessary in this burgeoning era of game development.

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